YP Comment: The Lords take their turn

AS THE House of Lords begins debating Britain's departure from the EU, Lord Wallace of Saltaire is, of course, entirely correct when he writes, on the opposite page that the Lords have a legitimate role to play in the Government's Brexit plans.
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In preparing to scrutinise and advise, however, their Lordships will surely be aware of the constitutional sensitivities at play here. It is one thing for the Commons to challenge the largest democratic vote in British history, but quite another for the Lords to do so.

An unelected and unreformed chamber, still containing hereditary peers and crammed to the gills with party appointees and Civil Service bureaucrats at a time when the honours system is being called into question as never before, will surely not wish to damage its credibility further by pressing too hard on this issue.

This is a time for diligent scrutiny and careful, considered advice, not for political grandstanding.